Sunshine In A World Of Shadows
by TabbyCat33098
Summary: In a world filled to the brim with shadows, Severus has suddenly stumbled across his own small piece of sunshine at a time when he needs it most. MARAUDERS VERSE. EVENTUAL AU. MENTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE.
1. Before - Part I

A/N: Long time no see, eh? Well, not really, I guess. I posted an Elementary fic last weekend. But I haven't been too active in the HP fandom lately. Sorry about that... Anyway, this is basically being written as a giftfic for a lovely person on Tumblr who won a giveaway I hosted a while back, and who gave me her permission to post online. I will forever be grateful to her not only for this permission, but for giving me the prompt in the first place. The prompt itself was basically "Snily AU where Lily forgives Severus for dabbling in the Dark Arts and they fall in love." Of course, being the overachieving author I am, I decided to start from when they were kids so I could have the chance to get used to their voices, and it just kind of spiraled out of my control.

Tbh, I didn't expect the fic to be longer than 5-6k, but it's grown beyond anything I could ever have hoped for. It's being divided into 3 parts: Before, During, and After. I think I'll post all three parts as one huge fic and just denote the part in the chapter title, but be aware that updates will be in chunks. I have the first part written already, so I'll try and get those chapters up once every day or two. Part 2 should come in about a month, with Part 3 a month or so after that.

I think that's all you need to know about the update schedule for this fic. As for my other fics... they're all currently on hold. I'm going to be concentrating on this fic, my NaNoWriMo novel, and a few other giftfics I'm writing for the next several months, and I don't think I'll be able to update ACOMI and Tail until next summer at the earliest. I'll try and get a few one-shots up if I can, but nothing too long, unfortunately. Never fear, though! I will finish them eventually!

Anyway, my A/N's for this fic should be shorter from now on. As always, reviews are loved! Reviewers will be gifted with cookies and hugs! Happy reading! :)

**DISCLAIMER: All characters and much of the dialogue belongs to JKR and her affiliates. Only the ideas and eventual canon-divergence are mine.**

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**Before - Part I**

He first notices her when he's trying to escape, running away from a shattered household and a broken family. He turned seven just a couple months ago, although the occasion was marked only by his quiet whisper ringing through the night as he congratulated himself on surviving another year. His parents didn't care enough to do anything special, and he's willing to bet they'd completely forgotten.

They're at it again, as they have been for all seven years of his wretched life, his father drunk and angry and his mother meek and weary. He knows it won't be long before his mother barricades herself inside her room, and his father has no one left to direct his anger towards but Severus himself. So he runs. He crawls through the bathroom window, landing in the flower bed with a soft thump, and runs, not knowing where he's going but knowing he has to get away.

He finds an empty playground a few streets away, far enough from his home that neither his mother nor his father will bother looking here, and he takes a moment to catch his breath. The playground looks as though it hasn't been used in years. The chains on the swing are rusting and cobwebs cover the carousel. Severus supposes it makes sense; he hasn't seen a single child anywhere near Spinner's End as long as he can remember. He walks over to the swingset and sits down heavily on one of the sagging swings.

He falls into daydreams as he sits there. He wonders what Hogwarts will be like; from the sparse tidbits his mother has given him, it sounds utterly delightful. He can't imagine having enough food to feed an army, or having time to play games like Quidditch, or practicing magic freely. For all that his mother is a witch, Severus knows almost nothing about his talents. His father hates magic and anything to do with it, and as a result of this, Severus' magical education is sorely lacking.

This, of course, leads him to practice his magic in the playground. He's found if he concentrates hard enough, he can do little things, parlor tricks, that are wholly unimpressive but still something. And anyway, he's off to Hogwarts in four years, and he has to be able to do something by then. Parlor tricks are better than nothing.

He's just managed to get a twig to levitate a few inches off the ground when he hears the patter of feet heading towards the playground, accompanied by two high-pitched voices. In a flash, he's jumped from the swing and dived behind a clump of bushes. He pokes his head up just in time to see two girls, one his age, and one a few years older, enter the playground. The younger one immediately runs to the swings, ignoring the rusted chains, and beings pumping her legs to soar ever higher.

"Be careful!" the older girl calls. "It isn't safe here."

"Come on, Tuney!" the younger girl responds. "Have some fun!"

Tuney, who Severus gathers is the younger girl's sister, curls her lip in disgust. Nevertheless, she marches stiffly to the swings and sits in the one closest to her sister. She pumps her legs halfheartedly. "Let's go home, this is boring," she complains.

The younger girl laughs joyously, stealing Severus' breath away, and swings even higher. "You're boring," she informs Tuney.

Tuney - and really, what a horrible name that is - opens her mouth to reply. Before she can say anything, though, a shrill scream cuts through the air. The younger girl has slipped from the rickety swing and now she's falling, falling, falling, about to crash to the ground and break half her bones. "Lily!" Tuney screams, horrified and in shock, and Severus wishes his magic was stronger so he could save this beautiful, carefree girl whose laugh sounds like sunshine and whose voice is sweeter than honey.

In the end, Severus' magic is entirely unnecessary because Lily floats through the air like a feather on the breeze, landing softly in the gravel without so much as a thump.

Lily and Tuney stand frozen for a minute, unable to process what just happened. Severus is frozen, too, but because the joy buzzing through his veins is something he's never felt before, and he's at a loss as to what it is he's feeling.

"How did you do that?" Tuney breaks the silence, voice ripe with suspicion. "It shouldn't be possible to survive a fall like that without a scratch!"

"I don't know," Lily wonders in awe. "I just thought I'm going to get hurt I don't want to get hurt and I...didn't."

Severus hides in the bushes, vibrating with joy and excitement, and waits for the two girls to figure out what he already has: that Lily has magic. But they remain silent far too long, and he starts to realize that they're Muggles. They can't possibly have any way of knowing magic even exists.

"I'm telling Mummy!" Tuney finally says, her eyes wide with fear and horror. She spins on her heels and races away, her small feet slapping audibly against the pavement.

Lily's eyes widen as well, with anxiety and uncertainty, and she takes off after her sister. "No, Tuney, wait! Come back!"

Severus counts to thirty after Lily disappears around the corner, then slowly appears from his hiding place. "Lily," he says, trying out the name. Even the way it rolls off his tongue gives the impression of the sweetest treat he's ever tasted. He laughs, just once, just for a second, then stops abruptly, because the sound and feeling are so foreign that they scare him a little. But he can't help it, can't help the unadulterated happiness coursing through his body, can't help the small tugging on the corners of his lips that pulls them up into a smile, can't help the laughter that bubbles up from his stomach and out his mouth, can't help feeling that the world is a little brighter and his parents' fighting a little more bearable.

He can't help that his world is full of shadows, and Lily has become his sunshine.


	2. Before - Part II

A/N: Being the idiot I am, I published this chapter without an author's note the first time. So. Here it is WITH an author's note. I don't have much to say, just that I appreciate the people who have fav'd and followed this fic. Reviews are loved and hoarded! Also. There will be 6 chapters to the first part, and they should all be out within the week. Happy reading! :)

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**Before - Part II**

He finds himself visiting the playground more and more often after that day. He tells himself it's because he's finally found a safe haven, not because he hopes to see Lily again. But he's always been terrible at lying to himself, and it isn't long before the chance of seeing Lily is the thought that drives him through the day. He tells himself then that he's only trying to see her because she's magical, too, and the only magical exposure he's ever had is the minor magic his mother performs to keep herself safe. He's magically deprived, Severus reassures himself, and he only wants to see Lily because he wants to more magical exposure.

This deception works better, perhaps because in a small way, it's the truth. Severus really is fascinated by Lily's magic. But more driving than that, even, and something Severus will never admit, is that he yearns to see her beatific smile and hear her mellifluous laugh again. If he never sees her for the rest of his life after that, he won't mind. All he cares about is seeing her light once more.

His parents' fights have been getting worse. His father had managed to land a job, Merlin knows how, but lost it within days. Of course, rather than take ownership of his faults, he's preferred to take it out on Severus and his mother. This time, Severus wasn't able to escape his father's wrath, and he doesn't walk so much as limp down to the playground. Every step jars his bruised and swollen leg, and every breath he takes scrapes down his hoarse throat.

All of that is forgotten when he reaches the playground.

Lily is already there, and as far as Severus can tell, she's alone. He silently sends up a prayer of gratitude because Tuney really is horrid. He isn't able to get close this time, Lily would see him for sure, but it doesn't matter to him. He doubles back and travels down a parallel road until he reaches the grove of trees that overlook the back of the playground. He snakes his way between the thick trunks and shimmies up a rather tall tree until he can see Lily again. Then he settles back against the trunk and simply watches her.

She appears to be practicing magic again. She's making sticks and pebbles float up and fly across the playground, squealing with delight every time she manages to do so. A small pile of debris is collecting at the bottom of the slide, where Lily's projectiles have all landed, and Severus has the random thought that any child coming down the slide is in for a nasty surprise.

He wonders how she would react if he revealed himself right now, if he fell from the tree and confessed that he was a wizard and she was a witch and they were both going to go to Hogwarts and wouldn't it be grand? He could teach her what little he knows about Hogwarts and the wizarding world, he thinks; he could share the small pieces of information he's gleaned from his mother's stories and her old school books hidden in his room. They're written for an audience much older and experienced than he is, but with determination and perseverance, he's managed to piece together a small window into the world he should be a part of but instead has been cast out from.

Severus shakes himself out of his somber thoughts. He doesn't need to worry about that now; he'll have plenty of time to do so later. In any case, one look at Severus' baggy, mismatched clothes, his limp, stringy hair, and his emaciated body, and Severus is certain Lily will run away screaming.

He won't know for sure, though, because here comes Tuney flouncing into the playground with a haughty expression marring her features. "There you are, Lily!" she exclaims, her tone disapproving and her hands flying to her hips. Then she notices the pile of sticks and stones resting by the slide and the floating twig that Lily is trying frantically to drop and, failing that, hide. "Were you doing...that? You know you're not supposed to!"

"I can't help it!" Lily defends herself. Severus feels a rush of warmth at the indignance in her voice. "It's like breathing, Tuney, it just happens."

Tuney glares. "You're not supposed to," she repeats sullenly. She turns away and saunters back the way she came. "Hurry up, Lily!" she calls without turning her head. "Or I'll tell Mummy you were doing you-know-what!"

Lily sighs sadly but does as her sister says and trudges away, her feet scuffing against the pavement and a disgruntled expression on her face.

Severus waits for her to disappear before dropping painfully to the ground. He doubles over, wheezing and gasping from the pain shooting through his thigh, but not even that can take away from the joy he felt while watching Lily. She has a certain charm that has managed to reel him in completely, despite him having seen her only twice, and he has the rather odd thought that he would take a bullet for her.

It's then that Severus finally starts to accept how badly she's affected him. She's inadvertently introduced him to a whole new side of life, one filled with sunshine and ecstasy and perfection and beauty, and he's not sure he can ever go back to the world he left behind. He has to get to know her better, he thinks to himself, if only so he can have a guarantee of perpetual sunshine.

He's an addict, and Lily is his drug.


	3. Before - Part III

A/N: Really, guys? No reviews at all? I'm a little hurt... Even a "Hey, I liked it!" would make my day. Thanks to those who followed and fav'd, though. You make me happy too. We're halfway through Before with this chapter, so only 3 more chapters to go. I'll get started on During in a week or two, after NaNoWriMo is over. Happy reading! :)

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**Before - Part III**

Six months later, his father leaves them, taking with him not only all the money hidden in the house but also the family's sole source of income. Suddenly, Severus' mother is working three jobs to cover the financial chasm Severus' father has left behind, often gone before he wakes up and never returning until after he's already asleep. Severus grows used to the unpleasant feeling of hunger gnawing at his stomach. And still, he knows that most of the food his mother manages to acquire goes straight to him. So he learns to go without breakfast and sometimes lunch, saving as much as he can for his mother.

In this, Severus' father's absence helps them. Now that he no longer looms over them, dark as a storm cloud, magic becomes a normal tool of the Snape household. Though, for some reason, magic can't create food, and though neither Severus nor his mother is particularly accomplished in the art of magic, they are able to heat and cool their house, mend and clean their clothes, and generally keep after themselves. The money saved by magic goes towards the food and rent, and they struggle through.

The only other truly, wholly positive thing that has come of this debacle is that Severus' mother has begun to spend more time with him. On the rare occasion that she's given a day off by one of her employers, she calls Severus into her bedroom and talks to him about magic, Hogwarts, Azkaban, the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, bringing fairytales to life. She marvels over his magic, teaching him the most basic of spells and letting him practice with her wand. At Christmas, St. Nick delivers three secondhand books about magic to their Christmas tree, and though Severus suspects they'll be eating lighter for it for the next week, he can't bring himself to care. His birthday two weeks later brings a small pastry from the deli three miles away and yet another book on magic, this one entitled Hogwarts, A History. He locks himself in his room most days and reads from sunrise to sunset, struggling with the words written for an audience a decade older than him but trudging along all the same.

But when he's read even the new books three times over, and done magic until he's positive he can perform these spells in his sleep, and finally lost the edge of his excitement, not even the prospect of leaving for Hogwarts in three years' time can help him ignore the hunger keeping him awake at night.

Sometimes, when he feels overwhelmed and his eyes well with tears and it feels like his chest is being crushed and everything threatens to collapse inward, burying him underneath piles and piles of rubble - in short, when he feels eight years old, he returns to the playground. He hasn't visited the place since his father left, content with his mother's company and the silence that blanketed their home. But even that contentment can only last so long, battered to shreds by the constant curiosity and activity of a child's mind.

Spring has finally arrived, and everywhere the trees are beginning to blossom. Lily and Tuney - Petunia, rather, Severus has found out; Tuney is just a nickname - return a month after Severus does, when the air is crisp enough to warrant another layer but the sun shines brightly enough to encourage the shedding of that layer. Lily continues to inadvertently explore the limits and boundaries of her magic under the disapproving but curious eye of Petunia, glowing with delight at the wonders she can perform with a simple thought.

And Severus feeds on it. He feeds like a starving man come to feast. Lily's joy is as infectious as it was the first time he was privy to it, replenishing him and setting his blood afire. Not even the surly Petunia is immune; despite the obvious daggers she is shooting from her eyes, she surreptitiously edges closer, a gleam of envy in her eye that Severus can wholly sympathize with. After all, who wouldn't want to be Lily? Who wouldn't want to be that carefree, that glowing, that flawless?

When the meager meals his mother brings home don't fill him completely, Severus doesn't complain. Instead, he mollifies his petulant stomach with a promise of tomorrow, a promise of pure ecstasy, if only it will consent to be patient. His sleep remains fitful, because after all, he is still no more than a child, but it is more bearable with the thought of Lily waiting for him on the other side of the darkness.

A lot of things are more bearable with the thought of Lily in the future, Severus muses. It strikes him, an epiphany he never saw coming but also knew all along, and he wonders how it got to be that way. After all, it's hardly been a year since he first saw her, and he's only seen her a handful of times since then anyway. How has she become the reason he is still alive? When did she become his reason to push on, to fight, to not give up? It must be unhealthy, the importance she has in Severus' life and the speed with which she claimed it.

But Severus doesn't care. What does it matter why he's so powered by Lily's mere presence? It keeps him going, and that's all he cares about. He continues to push though the hunger and pain and loneliness, and she's the reason why.

Somehow, without knowing, Severus has become the starving man of proverb, and Lily has become his sustenance.


	4. Before - Part IV

A/N: Sorry for not updating yesterday, I got home rather late from school and had to finish a ton of annotating for school. And then I fell asleep when I meant to stay up... Anyway! Long story short, yesterday was a bad day, but I'm back now. Only two more chapters after this, but the next one is a long one, so hopefully that'll make up for it. Also, this _will_ be eventual Snily AU, for those of you who are worried it'll follow canon completely. Much of "Before" and "During" is canon, yes, but the end of "During" and all of "After" will be AU. So don't worry, it's coming. As always, reviews are adored, as are favorites and follows. Thanks for sticking with me this far, and happy reading! :)

**EDIT: In the original version of this chapter, I had used Thanksgiving as a timeline reference. It has since been brought to my attention that there is no Thanksgiving in the UK, and so I've changed it to November instead. So yeah, if you think something's different, that's what it is.**

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**Before - Part IV**

Lily becomes a fixture at the playground after that, and so, by default, does Severus. He begins to subconsciously memorize Lily's schedule, knowing instinctively whether she is likely to be at the playground at a certain time. He scopes out the best places to hide so that he can remain unmoving but comfortable for long periods of time. The bushes, large, unkempt, sprawling masses of dead branches and leaves that haven't been properly trimmed in what appears to be decades, become Severus' hideout of choice. He finds that with a minor Glamour cast before he leaves the house, he can remain virtually undetected for as long as he desires. This is likely in part because Lily does not expect another child to be at the playground, but Severus likes to imagine it's because he's the most powerful wizard in the world, one who never has to worry about hunger and a tearful mother and whether the pretty girl at the playground will hate him.

That November brings the return of Severus' father. One day, Severus trudges back home from school, and his father is simply...there. His boots are slumped haphazardly by the door, his coat is slung over the couch, and Severus can hear him bustling about in the kitchen, most likely getting himself a beer. Severus knows, even without having confronted his father in the past year, that his father is going to act like nothing ever happened, and his mother is going to yell at her husband for leaving them and coming back without an explanation, and when she's hiding safely in her room he's going to seek out Severus and take out his drunken fury on the boy.

He hasn't seen his father in a year, and still his first instinct is to flee.

So he does. He turns straight back around and makes his way to the playground, despite the brisk wind that has picked up in the last ten minutes. He huddles further into the large overcoat he wears, rubbing his hands together in a futile attempt to generate some heat. The bushes have all withered away in the oncoming chill, but the trees are still relatively alive, and so he climbs into one, as close to its trunk as he can, and settles in for the long haul.

It's too cold for even Lily to brave the weather, much less Petunia, and Severus doesn't hold out much hope. Still, he wonders if maybe it isn't time to reveal himself after all. They'll both be leaving for Hogwarts in just a few years' time, and Severus supposes even one semi-acquaintance would be better than no one. Friendship is everything in this world, he's seen. Alone, there's not a lot that can be achieved.

He's right not to wait for Lily, because she never does come that evening. Severus stays in his chosen tree, shivering from time to time, until the stars have all come out and are twinkling in the sky. He stays out for another hour, searching for the few constellations he knows and making up several of his own, before he slides gracelessly out of the tree and treks home.

His father is blessedly asleep by then, so Severus fearfully sneaks his mother's wand from behind the brick in the chimney where she keeps it hidden and uses it to cast a simple Warming charm. He knows he probably shouldn't be using magic at such a young age, especially not magic this advanced, but he's nothing if not erudite, his mind soaking up knowledge like a sponge, and he knows the use of magic will simply be accredited to his mother by the Ministry of Magic.

For the first time, Severus wonders why his mother entered into such an unhappy marriage with a man who treats her like scum. She is not a foolish woman, nor is she a poor judge of character. So why, then, did she allow such a great lapse in judgment such as this?

A slew of possibilities flash through his mind, each as likely as the next. Perhaps he was conceived unexpectedly, and his mother had no choice. Perhaps his father had, at one point in his life, been a decent man, and had only recently turned into the drunkard he is now. Perhaps his father had been charming to his mother at the start, ensnaring her in a trap she was too naive and besotted to see, and had tightened noose when it was too late for her to escape.

Severus looks long and hard at the unshaven, spittle-flecked, grimy face of his father, who is snoring away obliviously on the ratty couch. Severus stares at his father's face until he thinks he has it memorized, until he could recognize this face from a mile away if asked, until each and every contour of this face is burned into Severus' memory like a brand. He memorizes his father's face, and he promises to himself in that instant, "I will never become him."

Quietly, he returns the wand to its hiding place. Then he walks up to his father, careful not to wake the man up, and whispers, "Did you hear that? I will never become you."

He walks to his room after that and falls into bed without bothering to undress beyond shaking off his jacket and dropping it in a heap on the floor. He doesn't even take off his shoes, their discomfort outweighed by the sudden, overwhelming tiredness Severus feels.

As he drifts off to sleep, Severus thinks about all the things he'd do for Lily if they ever got married. He'd take her out for ice-cream every night, he thinks, and they'd go visit the fair, and he'd cook dinner for her at least twice a week to give her a much-deserved break, and he would make sure that she never wanted for anything, not ever.

Because Severus has become a driven machine, capable only of moving forward, and Lily is his fuel.


	5. Before - Part V

A/N: This is easily the longest chapter of "Before," primarily because there was so much dialogue in the canon, and I was loathe to cut any of it out. As you've probably figured out by now, I'm taking most, if not all, scenes from the canon and rewriting them from Severus' perspective. This will, of course, change in "During" when Lily gets mad at Severus for being interested in the Dark Arts and all that, but until then, the dialogue will be some mixture of mostly JKR's words with an occasional few of my own thrown in. So yeah, I bet the disclaimer makes a lot more sense now, huh? Reviews, as always, are adored (and very shamelessly begged for). Happy reading! :)

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**Before - Part V**

The summer after he turns nine, Severus vows to himself that the next time he sees Lily, and the next time she performs magic, he's going to reveal himself to her. He's spent far too long obsessing over her from afar. It's time to muster his confidence and take the next step if he wants to be any kind of friends with her before he leaves for Hogwarts.

As it turns out, his opportunity comes soon enough. Lily's back to her same old vague, small tricks, the things that Petunia can't truly get her in trouble for because she can claim she was simply playing and Petunia must have been seeing things. She's swinging again, and Severus just wants to pause this moment in time and treasure it forever. She's never quite so free as when she's pumping her legs back and forth, back and forth, reaching closer and closer to the sky, an angel tethered unfairly to the earth who yearns to return home. Severus' deepest wish is that he could rip that tether to shreds for Lily and make her the freest angel that ever did fall to earth.

Lily's swinging higher and higher now, and Severus recognizes her body posture from the first time he saw her. Apparently Petunia notices as well, because a moment before Lily lets go, she shrieks, "Lily, don't do it!"

Severus spares her a withering glance, though she can't see him. Hasn't she learned by now that Lily is a free spirit, bound to no one, who does as she pleases? A simple shriek will not restrain her. Severus may not know her as well as Petunia does, but he knows that much, at least.

For the time being, however, he ignores Petunia. Lily is the spectacle here. She is the main attraction.

Sure enough, Lily leaps from the swing at the top of its arc, a great peal of joyous laughter bursting from her throat, and flies through the air, coming to a gentle stop on the ground. She remains in a crouch for a several seconds, giggling giddily to herself, before standing up and dusting off her hands.

"Mummy told you not to!" Petunia whines. It is an oft-repeated phrase, one that she uses every time Lily uses magic. Severus sometimes thinks it is Petunia's only argument. Petunia comes to a halt herself, dragging her heels against the gravel. She leaps up, her hands on her hips, and glares at Lily. "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!"

Severus chokes back a snicker at the usage of this argument one more. Really, can't Petunia come up with anything better?

"But I'm fine," Lily argues back, bubbles of laughter still erupting sporadically from her mouth. She turns towards the bushes behind which Severus is hiding, and Severus stiffens. He's glad, suddenly, that he paused to double-check that his Glamour charm was truly effective this morning. "Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do."

Petunia looks around cautiously, and Severus almost wants to laugh. There's no one around but the three of them. He should know; he's had nearly ten years to explore this area.

Lily approaches the bushes while Severus is mentally berating her sister, and he freezes. For one foolishly hopeful, terrifying moment, Severus thinks that she is walking toward him. But alas, she simply reaches down to pick up a fallen flower and hold it in her hand. She stands in such a way that with the right amount of craning and leaning, Severus can see what she's doing. Petunia approaches cautiously, and they both watch as the flower comes to life in Lily's hand. Its petals open and close in a constant, hypnotizing cycle, and Severus thinks he can watch this forever.

"Stop it!" Petunia shrieks, as mulish as ever, and Severus suppresses a sad sigh as Lily throws the flower back to the ground.

"It's not hurting you," says Lily defensively as she does so, and Severus wants to wallop Petunia upside the head a few times for not understanding.

"It's not right," Petunia sniffs. She sounds derisive and arrogant, but Severus can sense the longing in her voice. God knows he's heard it often enough in his own voice, or in his mother's when she passes a pastry store and wishes aloud that she could buy Severus the entire shop. "How do you do it? Petunia continues, only confirming Severus' suspicions about her.

And really, this has been going on for far too long, with Lily performing small magic tricks, parlor tricks, and Petunia asking how, and neither girl having a clue. Petunia's given him the perfect opportunity to burst forward, too, and he'd be a fool not to take it.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" he says breathlessly, jumping out from behind the bushes. The Glamour has probably fallen as well, now that he's not concentrating on it anymore. However, the reaction he receives is not the one he'd hoped for. Petunia shrieks and runs away from him, fleeing to the swings, but that's only as expected. Lily, on the other hand... She does not try to run, thank the heavens, but she does lose all color in her face, and her eyes widen in fear. Severus flushes slightly. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all, he thinks. But it's too late to take it back now; he'll just have to see it through.

"What's obvious?" asks Lily, a tad suspiciously.

Severus can hardly contain his excitement at being able to talk to this angel for the first time. All his fantasies and dreams flash before his eyes, and he knows without a doubt that if he messes this up, he won't have a chance. "I know what you are," he whispers conspiratorially, lowering his voice so Petunia can't hear them.

"What do you mean?"

"You're...you're a witch," Severus whispers reverently, the full weight of the words just now hitting him. Lily is a witch. This beautiful angel is like him. He's no longer a black sheep. A grey sheep, perhaps, but no longer truly black. And Lily is the reason why.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" Lily scoffs, glaring at Severus. She scoffs and flounces back to Petunia.

It takes a moment for Severus to understand what Lily just said, and when he does, he instinctively shouts, "No!" He's blushing heavily now, he just knows he is, because his cheeks are burning and everything is blurry and if he isn't careful he thinks he might actually burst into tears. He runs after her. "You are," he tells Lily, ignoring Petunia. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while," he admits, his cheeks burning with the confession. "But there's nothing wrong with that," he hurries on, trying to get her to see, to understand. "My mum's one, and I'm a wizard.

Later, Severus thinks that if it was just him and Lily, if they had been alone, maybe he could have still salvaged this meeting. But Petunia's presence ruins everything.

"Wizard!" she shrieks with a screech of laughter. "I know who you are. You're that Snape boy! They live down Spinner's End by the river," she tells Lily, and Severus feels a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Petunia's superior tone of voice grates against his pride, but that takes second place to the immense sadness he feels weighing down his heart. Lily will never talk to him now. She'll never believe him.

"Why have you been spying on us?" Petunia asks Severus, breaking him out of his thoughts.

This is another thing he'll come to regret, but now he has no way of stopping the acidic words from leaving his mouth. "Haven't been spying," he says hotly, lying through his teeth. He is suddenly sick and tired of Petunia always ruining everything, and nothing is more important to him right now than making her feel a fraction of the pain he feels. "Wouldn't spy on you, anyway," he continues spitefully, "you're a Muggle."

Evidently, though Petunia can't possibly know what being a Muggle means, she understands the tone of voice Severus employs, and it's enough to put the shriveled expression back on her face, as though she's sucking on a particularly sour lemon.

"Lily, come on, we're leaving!" she says shrilly, her hateful gaze not leaving Severus' until she turns around to flounce away. Lily remains in her place a moment longer, scrutinizing Severus. But then she, too, glares at him and follows Petunia, leaving only the sound of Severus' shattering heart behind in the sudden silence.

Severus feels his face fall. Even in his wildest dreams, he never thought their first meeting could go so horribly. He stands there, alone, broken, destroyed, in the deserted playground in the middle of a crisp spring day, replaying the scene over and over in his head and wondering how it all could possibly have gone so wrong.

Finally, he sinks to the ground, his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. As he sits there, utterly devoid of all feeling, a single tear escapes from his eye and tracks down his cheek before dripping onto his leg.

He's a broken child now, and Lily is the instrument of torture that did this to him.


	6. Before - Part VI

A/N: This brings about the end of "Before." "During" will pick up at King's Cross and continue through their Hogwarts years, and won't be out for at least a month. If this seems a little rushed or not as clean as the previous chapters, it's because this chapter (as well as most of Chapter 5) was written in a mad rush at about 3:00 in the morning so I could finally get the fic finished. This means that there are bound to be typos, and I accept full ownership of them. Thanks to those who have stuck with me this far; I hope you'll stick around until the end as well. As always, reviews are adored. Happy reading! :)

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**Before - Part VI**

To Severus' complete surprise and utter delight, Lily seeks him out hardly two weeks later. He's sitting listlessly on one of the swings, dragging his feet back and forth through the gravel. There's no need to hide himself from Lily and Petunia anymore, now that they know of his existence, so he might as well use the playground as well.

She approaches him tentatively, like a wild animal coming upon something foreign and unknown. Severus stops all his motion, looking her in the eye and trying to portray kindness without physically changing his facial expression. Slowly, Lily comes and sits next to him in the other swing. She remains silent, and Severus follows suit, not wanting to spook her.

"Is it true?" she finally asks, her voice soft and timid, a far cry from the vivacious girl she had been before Severus revealed himself to her. For a moment, Severus feels a pang of regret. "Can you do magic?"

Severus' spirits lift immediately. His entire body sings with joy, and he feels his breath stop. "Yeah," he tells Lily, trying to hide the elation he's feeling at the moment. It wouldn't do to scare her off just as he's gained her trust. "You want to see?"

Lily looks around tentatively. "Yes," she finally says, "but not here. Tuney's even more suspicious of me now. I don't want her telling my mum I'm hanging out with the weird kid from Spinner's End." A sharp burst of pain lances through Severus' heart at the insult, but he quells the sadness he feels. He shouldn't expect anything better, especially not after the debacle of two weeks ago. "Come on, I know a place we can go. It's pretty private, and Tuney doesn't know it exists." She stands up and trots away, beckoning Severus when he seems paralyzed.

So Severus stands up and follows, unwilling to be left behind as he so often is.

She leads him to a small thicket of trees on the bank of a river that looks more pure than heaven itself. It's a beautiful place, and it about takes his breath away. He wonders that he didn't discover this before, and whether he would have come here to escape his father if he had known about it. Then he realizes that he likely would never have seen Lily if he had, and so he chooses to feel grateful instead that he knew only of the playground.

Lily sits on the ground, and Severus does the same. It's warmer here, and so Severus takes off his coat, praying hard that Lily won't mind or say anything about it. To his relief, she doesn't mention it.

"What can you do?" she asks when he's seated. Despite her reservations, she seems eager.

Finally, for the first time, Severus allows a wide grin to spread on his face. "Watch," he says, and screws up his eyes in concentration. It takes a moment, but soon, he's able to levitate several fallen twigs and stones. It's nothing Lily hasn't done before, but still, her eyes light up with joy and excitement. Severus wonders if it's in part because she's found someone like her as well, someone who appreciates what she can do, someone who can understand. He lets the debris float in midair for a minute before letting it all drop back to the soft ground. Quietly, Lily applauds.

"You're better," Severus admits modestly, blushing fiercely and looking away. "That was barely anything."

"You can do magic!" Lily exclaims softly, awed. She appears not to have heard anything Severus just said, but Severus isn't keen on repeating himself. "Tell me about it," Lily demands. "Tell me everything."

"Everything?" Severus repeats incredulously, taken aback. He hardly knows where to start. When Lily nods, Severus makes a note to bring some of his books that next time they might-if they even meet again. Still, he starts with Hogwarts, telling her everything his mother has ever told him and everything he's read in Hogwarts, A History.

The grove becomes their meeting place. Severus is there almost constantly, trying to get away from the constant screaming and shouting that emanates from his home now. Lily gets away when she can make it, about twice a week, and every time she comes to the grove, Severus tells her something else he's learned. When they run out of magical topics to talk about, they find that they've rather come to enjoy each other's company, and so they talk about their lives in general. Lily quickly becomes Severus' confidante, the one person in the world he would trust with his soul, more important even than his mother. He tells her everything, how his parents constantly argue, how his father beats him, how he can't wait to escape.

In return, Lily feeds him stories about her life, her friends and classes. She provides a window into normalcy. As normalcy is something Severus can only dream of ever achieving, this window is the closest thing he has, and he regards it as one of the best presents he's ever received.

As time continues, Severus starts to feel a gap in his life close. The torn seams are gathered close together and sewn up tightly, letting no bad memories through. He sleeps better at night, and each day becomes a little more bearable.

He's telling her about how she'll receive her invitation to Hogwarts when the sudden realization strikes him, a realization so monumental he's not entirely sure how he missed it before.

"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?" Lily has just asked, apprehensive and nervous and trying so hard to hide it. But Severus can tell it's one of her biggest fears about Hogwarts.

He hesitates momentarily, torn between relaying the somewhat inferior status of Muggle-borns in wizarding society and relieving Lily's tension. In the end, he chooses the latter.

"No," he says. "It doesn't make any difference."

This above anything is what tips Severus off to the magnitude of his feelings toward her. This choice of comfort and sympathy over truth and facts is what tells him that she's special. Right now, all he wants to do is make her smile again. He wants to ease all her worries, soothe her, tell her nothing will ever harm her.

"Good," says Lily, breathing a small sigh of relief.

"You've got loads of magic. I saw that. All the time I was watching you," Severus tells her, needing to reassure her further. He trails off when he sees that she isn't paying attention to him anymore, choosing instead to stretch out in the shade and stare straight up. He watches her, seeing the happiness and life etched in every nuance of her face.

It's then that he's struck with an epiphany. It's then that he realizes Lily means more to him that he does himself. He's finally able to admit that he values Lily above everything in the world, no matter how valuable or rare or exotic.

Severus is lost in the wind, and Lily is the rock that keeps him steady.


End file.
